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A bevy of future engineers from Middle Creek High School will have a very special teacher to thank for their success.

Middle Creek engineering teacher Erik Schettig has received the High School Teacher Excellence Award from the North Carolina Technology Engineering and Design Educators.

Candidates for the Teacher Excellence Award are characterized as providing technology and engineering education instruction of high quality, learner centered and relevant to a study of technological literacy.

Schettig has taught a total of two years at Middle Creek and a total of four years in WCPSS.

The Teacher Excellence Award is one of the highest honors given to Technology and Engineering Education classroom teachers and is presented in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the profession and to their students.

There was a 29% reduction in out-of-school suspensions between the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years, the continuation of a five-year downward trend.

There were 11,205 suspensions in 2013-14, compared to 15,723 the previous year. That’s a 29 percent drop, and a 45% reduction since the 2009-10 school year, when there were 20,244 suspensions. It’s important to note that the actual number of suspensions has gone down – not just the percentage – even as the student population has continued to grow steadily.

Short-term suspensions dropped from 15,378 in 2012-13 to 10,938 in 2013-14, a 29% reduction. That’s down 44% from the 19,396 short-term suspensions in 2009-10.

There was also a marked decrease in long-term suspensions, 267 last year compared to 345 the year before. That marked a 23% reduction year to year, and a 69% reduction from the 848 long-term suspensions in 2009-10.

Big picture: 95.5% of the district’s 150,000+ students were NOT suspended last year.

WCPSS figures compare favorably with other North Carolina school districts. Wake County had a suspension rate of 16.18 suspensions per 100 students, compared to a 39.95 per 100 rate in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 20.66 in Guilford and 30.76 in Cumberland.

District and school leaders have engaged a number of strategies to reduce suspensions, aimed at both preventing misbehavior and intervening more effectively.

On the prevention front, for example, more than 100 schools use the Positive Behavioral Intervention & Supports (PBIS) framework. This is a school-wide effort to demonstrate to students what good behavior does and doesn’t look like. It rewards students who perform well.

On the intervention front, schools in the district also have been making more and better use of Alternative Learning Centers (ALCs), designed for students who temporarily need to work outside the regular classroom, either because of behavior problems or because they are behind academically. ALC teachers have received more training on helping students stay on track academically while also addressing behavioral issues.

WCPSS revised its student code of conduct five years ago to encourage school leaders to avoid using out-of-school suspension for minor, non-violent infractions.

“We understand that if kids aren’t in school, they’re not learning,” says Brenda Elliott, assistant superintendent for student support services. “However, if their behavior is disruptive to the school environment, then we have to address it. And our goal is to address the behavior in a way that is instructive and limits the chance that the student will fall behind academically.”

Going forward, district officials want to work closely with parents, community leaders including police and student leadership to continue to improve prevention and intervention.

District and school leaders will look to address the disproportionate numbers of African-American students who are suspended. They make up 25% of the total student body but 62% of students suspended.

WCPSS has enacted a district action plan that includes community and family outreach and guidelines to support equitable discipline practices.

“Our top priority this year will be examining our data to better understand why we have disparities between subgroups and implementing strategies to address those disparities,” Elliott says.

Welding student Nick Mazzeo and nursing assistant student Kayla Turner appeared in the segment, which aired at 8:30 on Friday morning.

“I know when I get out of school, I’ll be job-ready, ready to join a career field and start making money,” Mazzeo said.

“It’s not a walk in the park,” Turner said of Vernon Malone’s challenging, hands-on curriculum that helps students earn college credits as they simultaneously complete their high school requirements.

Vernon Malone, a joint partnership between the Wake County Public School System, Wake Technical Community College and Wake County Government, opened this year to students in 10th-12th grade. Ninth graders can attend the school starting next year.

Reedy Creek and Yates Mill Elementary Schools are two of 78 Title I schools recently recognized as North Carolina Title I Reward Schools for 2014-15.

A Reward School is a Title I school that ranks among the highest 10 percent of all Title I schools, according to several student performance criteria.

Schools were selected for recognition based on assessment data from the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years. Reedy Creek Elementary has been recognized for two consecutive years.

Title I is the largest federal education funding program for schools. Its aim is to help students who are behind academically or at risk of falling behind. School funding is based generally on the number of students eligible for the free and reduced price lunch program.

After months of public discussion and extensive revisions, the Wake County Board of Education on Tuesday approved a student enrollment plan for the 2015-2016 school year.

No more than 2,734 students would be affected by the plan – less than 2 percent of the system’s overall student enrollment.

Click here to type in your address and find out if you are impacted by the plan. A link to the final plan can be found here.

At a Tuesday work session, board members asked staff to look into the possibility of providing transportation to a select group of rising fourth and fifth graders who are eligible to grandfather at their current school. A final decision on this will be made once the board has had a chance to review the transportation implications.

Slightly less than half of students affected by the enrollment plan would attend one of three new schools opening next year: Abbotts Creek Elementary, Scotts Ridge Elementary and Apex Friendship High School.

The remaining students – less than 1,600 – were included in the plan to help align school calendars across grade spans, reduce the assignment of neighborhoods to multiple schools or reduce overcrowding. These students can choose to remain at their current schools if they provide their own transportation.

The finalized plan reflects dozens of changes made in response to parent concerns shared online at envisionwake.mindmixer.com and in a series of public meetings. The site has drawn more than 20,000 visitors and nearly 2,700 comments since launching in August.

At a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 2, the Wake County Board of Education voted to re-elect school board member Christine Kushner, who has been school board chair for the past year, to a second one-year term as chair.

Tom Benton, who has been school board vice-chair for the past year, was re-elected to a second one-year term as vice-chair.

One of the characteristics of an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme student is inquisitiveness.

That was on full display Friday morning at Fox Road IB Magnet School, as more than 100 second-graders peppered Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane with questions about everything from her salary to what her office looks like.

What follows is an abridged transcript of the spirited press conference:

A: Well, that’s up for debate. [grown-up laughter] It helps to be smart. But it’s hard to know everything about everything. I try to learn as much as I can. For the things I don’t know, I go ask the people who do.

Q: Do you have to be focused?

A: Yes, you do. I have to focus not only on how things are today, but also how they will be in 10 years or 20 years. I want to make sure that when you grow up, you will want to live here and that you will think Raleigh is still a nice place to live.

Q: How many laws can you make in a day?

A: Well, we have meetings at 1 o’clock and then another one at 7 o’clock. How many can we pass in that time? There’s no limit. We can pass as many as we want.

Q: Do you run the stores?

A: No, I don’t. The city has inspectors that make sure, when a store opens, that it’s safe. And sometimes we work with stores to try to bring them to Raleigh.

A: Well I have a desk, and a big table for meetings. And I have a big picture of a counselor at the YMCA laughing and playing with a bunch of kids. That’s my daughter.

Q: What happens if you don’t do your job?

A: Then things at the city don’t run very well.

Q: Are you the president’s boss?

A: No, but I have met him a few times.

Q: Is anyone the boss of you?

A: Yes, the 420,000 people in Raleigh are the boss of me.

Q: How much money do you make?

A: Well, I just got a raise, so I now make $15,000 a year.

Students, in their only break from press-scrum objectivity: Whoaaa!

Mayor McFarlane with Fox Road teachers and staff.

About Fox Road Magnet Elementary School

Fox Road transitioned from a traditional elementary to an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme magnet in the 2013-14 school year.

In the IB Programme, students are encouraged to be inquisitive, working with their teacher and their peers to get answers. “The teacher is the facilitator rather than the fountain of knowledge,” says Anne Waechter, magnet coordinator at Fox Road. “They’re exploring learning rather than memorizing information.” (Click here to learn more about the IB Learner Profile.)

Walk into a Fox Road classroom and you’re likely to find students huddled in small groups, often with iPads at the ready, working on a project that ties in with both IB themes and core subjects.

Fox Road students have embraced the attributes of an IB learner with gusto. They understand the meaning of words like principled, inquirer and knowledgeable, and they demonstrate these attributes on a daily basis to turn their learning into action to better our world. “They’ve mastered and become a part of their own learning,” Waechter says. “They’re in the driver’s seat, and therefore more engaged.”

One sign of that is the fact that behavioral incidents have decreased sharply since the IB Programme was implemented, Waechter says.

There are six transdisciplinary themes in IB:

Who we are

Where we are in place and time

How we organize ourselves

How we express ourselves

Sharing the planet

How the world works

Those themes shape how core subjects such as math, science, language, social studies and the arts are taught.

Mayor McFarlane’s visit jibed with several of those themes, as she met with second-graders engaged in a government services unit.

Parents who wish to schedule a tour or ask questions can contact Waechter at 919-850-8859 or by email at awaechter@wcpss.net. An open house is slated for Jan. 7.

Each magnet elementary program will be represented by parents and staff from the school.

Click HERE to learn more about all magnet programs and other recruitment events.

P.S. A reminder to parents of prospective Early College school applicants: The application period lasts only until Dec. 1 and requires an essay. Click HERE for more information about those programs and how to apply.